


I'd Rather Stay Silent

by prouvairepetal



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-10 22:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouvairepetal/pseuds/prouvairepetal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan wrote a poem for Courfeyrac before they went on the barricade. When he wakes up to find himself the last one there, he is trembling between grief and madness. Courfeyrac survived as well, even though he is hurt bad, he tries to find Jehan.....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prouvairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouvairy/gifts).



> Non-Beta.
> 
> For Prouvairy, because I really adore her writing style!

_In a world where flowers bloom in melodies,_  
 _where I can see the memories grow,_  
 _upon the gravestones of the past._

_As their petals spread upon the grey skies,_  
 _where regrets turn into notes,_  
 _ink runs out of paperless lines,_  
 _and I write melodies on your skin,_  
 _awaiting the silence to burst into a song._

 

"I can still hear their song, echoing through the streets", it rang in his ears. He didn't know where the voice came from, nor did he care. The world around him was nothing but a dark blur. Was it night, was it day? His eyelashes covered the world around him into darkness, but they felt to heavy to lift.  
Everything felt heavy, breathing, moving, thinking. Even down to his bones, to his heart, every inch of his body was in vain. And though it felt numb, not as important as something else.  
As soon as his mind catched up with this hint of a thought, he felt back to the slumber in the dark again. And he remembered this happening since. Over and over, he tried to wake u, but couldn't. Whenever he catched a clear thought, be it his name, be it where he was, what had happened before, the darkness began to pull him back down to sleep. 

It wasn't the sort of sleep he knew, when he was home. He knew, his home was close by, in one of the streets crossing this one. He knew, he wasn't far away from the places he used to know, he used to visit day by day. Though, it was a completely new world. As Enjolras has told them before, a entirely new place. Sure, it was a new world, but it didn't raise out of the ashes of the old one. The streets were covered in dust and loss. No one sang a song of victory, no one was free. Not yet.

 

_Hope dies last._


	2. Wake up!

"Jehan, wake up. You can not sleep now!"  
A sentence still echoing through his head, made him startle.  
For a moment, he believed it was still night, last night, a night on the barricade. Just for a second, he could recall the look Courfeyrac had given him. His eyes were still soaked with tears he shed for Eponine, his smile was about to fade, but he tried not to show it towards the other boys. Jehan had been tired out soon and fell asleep, leaning against a half-broken headpart of a bed. Rubbing his eyes, he tried to focus again. The night was closing in and rain poured down merciless.  
After Eponine's death it got silent on the barricade. Though it was noisy on everyones mind.  
In the beginning they tried to deny it, tried to concentrate on the goal they were about to reach. But when they saw her dying in Marius' arms, they needed to admit that death was close to every single one of them.  
Some of the boys thought about the world they left behind, families that were not proud of what they were about to do, beloved ones who would face the world on their own from the morning onwards. Some of them thought about the future, they were about to miss. The many days that would pass without them, the plans they had made. And it wasn't a 'maybe' nor a 'what if', anymore. Slowly they realized that the barricade would become their death-bed. 

"Jehan, wake up."  
One sentence, still. He could still recall Courfeyrac's face, the smell of the rain, the silence on the barricade. The hope centered on those, far off from the barricade, far off from the fight and though so close to the freedom they fought for. And though, he could not feel the slightest little bit of fear. Not for his own life, but for the lives of his friends.  
For the moment there was a future, for the moment, it was waiting. Waiting for the morning to arise.

_Jehan, wake up._


	3. Chapter 3

The cannon shot hit the barricade the first time. Pieces of wood and nails hurled through the air, someone screamed in a close distance. The surface shattered and the table that had been a stable surface for Courfeyrac just a second ago, cracked apart. He trembled backwards and fell. With a last glimpse he saw Grantaire climbing up to where Enjolras stood. The top of the barricade, the horizon of the new world. It was the last thing he saw before his world went dark and numb. Courfeyracs head hit the ground, soundless.   
Someone screamed his name on the barricade, but he drifted off to the softness of the blur within another moment. And as it passed, he felt the second cannon shot, shaking the ground, shaking the barricade, shaking the hope.   
When it was only echoing through, he found himself up on his feet again. Unsure if he could keep on walking, still partially stuck in the softness that the injury made him believe to feel, he dragged himself closer towards the barricade. 

The body of a blonde boy, draped across parts of furniture, was the first thing he could see. He was still shaking, gasping for air, eyes closed, his nails dug in the wood. To hold on to at least something, as their world fell apart in the echo of a noise. Some strands of his hair, wet from the rain, tangled up with his surroundings, pieces of bursted wood inside the poorly braided locks. Corfeyrac wanted to think about the past, when he watched it grow, when he began to braid it from the desk behind Jehan, during lessons, the many times he untangled it for his friend. But there was no time for it, _by now._


	4. Chapter 4

_"Save him"_ , was all that came to his mind in that moment. 

He heard them loading the cannon again, metals chafing on each other. As Courfeyrac took Jehan's body in his arms, it felt like nothing. The poet had never been heavy at all, and sometimes he had been mocked at for his figure.   
Courfeyrac had carried him before, one day in autumn, when they were out on the streets at night. On their way home from the ABC cafè, some of the very last who left the place after a long night. The heat was still unbearably hanging in the streets, as they tried to sustain each other during walking. It had ended up in drinking games and neither of them had ever challenged Grantaire before. Soon Jehan ended up giggling like mad over every word the others spoke and they decided to leave before it could get worse. They were babbling and sharing thoughts about the day and the future, without hesitating on their words, when Jehan drifted off from Courfeyrac slowly and crashed into some boxes in front of a shop. They bursted into laughter, and when there was only echoes left that haunted the streets of the past times, Courfeyrac leaned down to help his friend up again. Jehan grabbed his arm and pulled the other boy down as well. It ended up in amusement again.   
It took them some time, to get back to breathing normal, to sober up a little. And it would take forever for them to realize that summer would be gone one day, that everything was _fading away slowly_.


	5. Chapter 5

_"Courf, I think I am hurt..."_

He looked over to Jehan, lying among the boxes next to him, on the dirty ground. The poet held his leg with both hands, still smiling, still drunk. Yet he was so fragile, he was brave at the same time.  
"Let me help you."  
The taller one lifted himself up from the ground, still a little fluttering on his own legs. Then he reached out for the other boy. Jehan tried to catch Courfeyracs hand, but e pulled away quickly.  
"Don't pull me down again!", he laughed.  
Jehan giggled softly, then shook his head. The other student bent down and lifted him from the ground carefully. Blood dripped down from the poet's ankle, not much, just a small injury, but it was enough to make his friend worry.  
"I will take care of that, when you're home.", he promised.  
"It's just a scrape..." - "I will take care of it anyway, no backtalking."  
As they made their way to the fragile poet's place, he nuzzled his head against Courfeyracs chest, smiling humbly all the way through the streets. Until he fell asleep hours after, when his wound got treated and bandaged, and his friend fell asleep, resting his back against Jehan's bed.


	6. Chapter 6

_"Courf, I think I am hurt."_ , he still could hear him murmuring, though it was a memory that was about to burn out like the candles in the cafè that night. Leaving nothing but smoke behind. Smoke and dust, that covered their faces, their clothing, their hair on the barricade.  
When he lifted him this time, Jehans body was fading away, already. Like death was no longer reaching out for it, it held him close in his arms. And Courfeyrac knew, the only thing he could possibly give him now, was a little more time. Though he was in doubt that it would be worth it, more time in a place like that, more time to live.  
He shook the thoghts off quickly and lifted a piano part up, to hide his friends body safely underneath it.  
"Just for a while", he thought, "just until..."  
He couldn't think any further. There was nothing waiting for him, but the barricade, and though as he heard them giving the signal to fire, he dashed aside. Courfeyrac ran. And it took him only one single step to _regret_.

_Tell me nothing,_  
 _I will read the regret right from your eyes._  
 _Like an open book,_  
 _you always were._  
 _But not for everyone to read._

_Keep silent,_  
 _as still as me._  
 _Tell me nothing,_  
 _I will write your answers in the skies._  
 _Neither from heaven or from earth._  
 _But from the bottom of your heart,_  
 _I will spell our secrets upon a star._  
 _Nothing lasts forever,_  
 _but the silent hope in liberty._


End file.
